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GWF Reaper build
hivetyrantrex
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 5 Arc User
After looking at some of the excellent posts by some of the members on these forums, and trying out different builds, I have settled for one which I think will satisfy a lot of disappointed GWF players. This build will not make anyone a DPS god, and needs some timing and positioning to work, which might not be for everyone. It does however provide both usefulness and competitive damage for the end game.
I normally place second in damage if there is a good well geared rogue in the group, and only extremely rarely get behind a CW, and that is only if they run the douchy pushback on everything ego build, which really hurts this build more than other GWF builds.
Get on with the build already! Yes sir!
At wills: WMS (duh) and Reaping strike
Reaping strike is the bread and butter of the build, fully charged it deals great damage, and it will make you smile when you crit everything around you for 10-15k+, which greatly outperforms WMS spamming. The trick is outside of unstoppable, to use WMS once, then a max charged reaping strike and repeat, to keep up debuffs etc. Another benefit of reaping strike is the added determination when hit during charge up, yes please!
Use sprint just after landing a reaping strike, this cancels the "recovery animation" and let's just instantly use WMS and another reaping. This sprint dance takes some getting used to, but will greatly improve damage potential.
Encounters: IBS, Roar, Come and get it.
Kind of self explanatory, roar for determination (good to use during a singularity if you do not wish to push mobs). Come and get it is overall nice to set up either IBS or a reaping strike, also helpful to take pressure of the cleric running around like a headless chicken.
Daily: Slam + whatever
Slam is slam, slam as much as possible, stack recovery, slam some more!
Passives: Destroyer, weapon master or steel blitz (preference and hard to test).
Feats: Destroyer path, get the usual heroic feats and from paragon get student of the sword. The main difference from other destroyer builds here, is to skip deep gash and get way of the executioner. At least that is what I do, depends on the groups you normally run with. At least with WotE you get sort of respectable single target damage, with an enfeeble CW I have gotten single target crits of 25k+ at times, which leaves our other at wills in the dust (especially looking at you sure strike, the shame!).
Stats:
Go for Armor penetration, my damage went up a LOT after I scrapped all those power enchants, and switched them all for armor pen, just try it. Recovery is a fantastic stat as well, and finally crit. Ideally you should aim for around 2200 armor pen, and at least 2500 recovery and crit. Focusing hard on one stat and leaving the others low will make your overall performance suffer. Power is absolute junk, and is just kind of ok to get more of when the other stats hit their cap area.
Lastly the cat or ideally the stone pet, filled with the above stats, will help your damage a lot, and should be the first thing to consider if you get some AD or zen on your hands.
This is just kind of a summary of findings around this forum and in game chats, and I will not take credit for any great discoveries here, just putting it out there to hopefully help people like it helped me.
The GWF might not be in a good shape, but when people consider kicking your due to your class, complaining that "we might not down the boss with a GWF", it makes it much more sweet to be on top of the damage charts while towering over a dead boss.
Special thanks goes to Trickshaw for some great constructive posts in here, using his data and information helped me regain the joy of playing GWF.
I normally place second in damage if there is a good well geared rogue in the group, and only extremely rarely get behind a CW, and that is only if they run the douchy pushback on everything ego build, which really hurts this build more than other GWF builds.
Get on with the build already! Yes sir!
At wills: WMS (duh) and Reaping strike
Reaping strike is the bread and butter of the build, fully charged it deals great damage, and it will make you smile when you crit everything around you for 10-15k+, which greatly outperforms WMS spamming. The trick is outside of unstoppable, to use WMS once, then a max charged reaping strike and repeat, to keep up debuffs etc. Another benefit of reaping strike is the added determination when hit during charge up, yes please!
Use sprint just after landing a reaping strike, this cancels the "recovery animation" and let's just instantly use WMS and another reaping. This sprint dance takes some getting used to, but will greatly improve damage potential.
Encounters: IBS, Roar, Come and get it.
Kind of self explanatory, roar for determination (good to use during a singularity if you do not wish to push mobs). Come and get it is overall nice to set up either IBS or a reaping strike, also helpful to take pressure of the cleric running around like a headless chicken.
Daily: Slam + whatever
Slam is slam, slam as much as possible, stack recovery, slam some more!
Passives: Destroyer, weapon master or steel blitz (preference and hard to test).
Feats: Destroyer path, get the usual heroic feats and from paragon get student of the sword. The main difference from other destroyer builds here, is to skip deep gash and get way of the executioner. At least that is what I do, depends on the groups you normally run with. At least with WotE you get sort of respectable single target damage, with an enfeeble CW I have gotten single target crits of 25k+ at times, which leaves our other at wills in the dust (especially looking at you sure strike, the shame!).
Stats:
Go for Armor penetration, my damage went up a LOT after I scrapped all those power enchants, and switched them all for armor pen, just try it. Recovery is a fantastic stat as well, and finally crit. Ideally you should aim for around 2200 armor pen, and at least 2500 recovery and crit. Focusing hard on one stat and leaving the others low will make your overall performance suffer. Power is absolute junk, and is just kind of ok to get more of when the other stats hit their cap area.
Lastly the cat or ideally the stone pet, filled with the above stats, will help your damage a lot, and should be the first thing to consider if you get some AD or zen on your hands.
This is just kind of a summary of findings around this forum and in game chats, and I will not take credit for any great discoveries here, just putting it out there to hopefully help people like it helped me.
The GWF might not be in a good shape, but when people consider kicking your due to your class, complaining that "we might not down the boss with a GWF", it makes it much more sweet to be on top of the damage charts while towering over a dead boss.
Special thanks goes to Trickshaw for some great constructive posts in here, using his data and information helped me regain the joy of playing GWF.
Post edited by hivetyrantrex on
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Comments
2.) Unless you're in unstoppable. In which case either pay attention to the cast bar or, if that annoys you, make sure you're letting go of Reaping on the second charge "sound" instead of the 3rd. There's an animation bug with Reaping whilst in unstoppable. You will hit full charge by the second "sound". I promise.
3.) If you use WMS first you can get Reaping up to the second charge by the time the phantom "back attack" from WMS hits.
THE ONLY PROBLEM with Reaping is there is some kind of bug where it will drop your stacks of Weapon Master. I haven't quite figured out what's causing it to do this but it does happen quite often.
It could be similar to the bug my cleric has where punishing light (the channeled divinity at will) will stack things up fast like plaguefire or my other dmg debuff class feature but instantly drops them as soon as you stop channeling.
Personally I'm still not sure whether I want to keep focusing on reaping strike, or just go 100% for WMS, you can cancel both of them for a big DPS increase and they're both satisfying, I dunno.
I suppose reaping would only be good if you get the feat for it?
Single target Reaping Strike crits FTW.
I do have an issue though, which I am not sure is a bug or what, but I notice at times even with full charges, I hit for nearly nothing, which does not happen on target dummies. I am talking like 1/3 dmg even with a fully charged reaping strike, sort of feels like it does not register the build ups. Anyone noticed something similar?
WMS can work as a main attack, I just find it "odd" and "stiff" to look at, personal preference I know. I prefer the feel and animation of wicked strike, but I just can't make it wor as efficiently as Reaping or WMS.
The downside of reaping is the slow attack speed, which makes it harder to position and more likely to "fail", it also keeps it harder to keep up debuffs like student of the sword. With the current tools it is hard to get a clear picture of what does more damage, I just feel like reaping downs mobs faster.